There is a rapidly expanding industry emerging around Web services, a term loosely defined as the ability to share software as a service using network protocols. Web services and other network accessible software services require significant time. As the Web service infrastructure evolves, it is becoming increasingly complicated, requiring more time, skill, knowledge and ultimately money to create Web services. Consequently, the generation and deployment of Web services is increasingly tedious and unnecessarily complicated for the average developer. Currently, in addition to developing the software logic offered via the Web service, developers are also required to address a number of tedious and complex issues involving Web service generation and deployment. Examples of such issues include but are not limited to, security, reliable messaging and message pre/post processors (a.k.a. interceptors).
It is not uncommon for Web services to require several forms of security simultaneously. The creation and deployment of secure Web services and other software services made available over networks is a complex and time consuming process for both software developers and system managers.
Reliable messaging is often required for Web services, but yet is not inherent in the protocols typically used. Reliable messaging is implemented on both the client and the server and will generally support a callback path, used in the event of a failure. Thus, developers require considerable specialized knowledge and time to develop, test, and deploy reliable messaging schemes.
In many practical Web services implementations and system integrations, it is necessary to manipulate both incoming and outgoing network messages with message pre/post processors. These manipulations can include transformation of message headers and contents, logging, auditing, message redirection, and protocol conversions.